Health 2.0 Tackles The ‘Unacceptables’ of Healthcare

September 06, 2018

With so much happening in the world of healthcare, technology and beyond, there’s surely a lot of ground to cover when we converse about what’s next in health tech. We hear endless chatter about the untapped potential of things like interoperability, artificial intelligence and their power to improve healthcare. It’s a vision we’re focused on, but in most settings, not quite yet a reality within workflows.

What we’re not talking enough about are the unpleasant realities weaved into the fabric of our lives and workflows like stress, substance abuse, suicide – the list goes on. And then, there’s the secondhand impact these issues inflict upon family members, friends, colleagues, etc. These things aren’t just part of the job, or part of life – they’re inflicting serious damage to health. Care providers would agree that staying silent and ignoring a condition rarely leads to positive outcomes – so why aren’t we talking about these issues?

A follow up to a retired Health 2.0 session called The Unmentionables, Health 2.0’s panel session The Unacceptables breaks the ice on tough topics impacting the health of millions. “The Unacceptables is focused on the disparities in health and healthcare that we really shouldn’t tolerate,” said Indu Subaiya, executive vice president at HIMSS and co-founder and chief executive officer of Health 2.0.

What was once called ‘unmentionable’ has evolved into what should be deemed ‘unacceptable’ in the newly revamped session covering four new topic areas this year.

Physician Suicide

“That has become a bigger issue than anyone wants to believe,” Subaiya explained. “Provider burnout is also a huge problem in our industry. We’re having a documentary filmmaker talk about her experiences with the issue and how she went on the road to help educate healthcare professionals about physician burnout and suicide.

Eating Disorders

“We’re featuring a company that was founded to help healthcare providers incorporate treatment for eating disorders as part of the protocol for care. So we’re asking more about it, we’re making more space for it in the traditional clinical environment and offering more effective interventions.”

Natural Disaster Preparedness

“We’ll be looking at this more from a preparedness standpoint and a response standpoint,” Subaiya noted, mentioning how the federal government is looking toward the world of health tech to address the impact that events like major earthquakes and hurricanes have on health.

The Opioid Epidemic

“We’ll be talking to three different companies for this part, because there’s a lot to cover here,” Subaiya said. “For instance, we’ll hear from a company that has created an artificial intelligence platform that can diagnose opioid addiction through facial recognition software.”

“So those are four topics we’re featuring this year not only just to talk about the seriousness of each issue, but also to showcase all the different ways work’s being done to resolve these issues, which is the inspiring part,” shared Subaiya.